


The Solace System

by Ancalime1



Series: Two Gays Floating Zero Feet Apart Because They're Gay and in Space [1]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Infinity War? I don't know her, M/M, being gay in space, i forget how to tag things on ao3, it's been So Long, just some space gays, like so much fluff, look if you like corny gays then you're in the right place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 03:59:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14926734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ancalime1/pseuds/Ancalime1
Summary: After the events of Ragnarok, Thor and Bruce decide to Talk It Out.





	The Solace System

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fic in exactly one (1) year, but these two have inspired me to write again!! I love them so so much <3

 

The first thing Bruce noticed when he awoke was not the stinging pain in his forehead, nor the grossly fascinated silhouette of Brunnhilde standing over him. It was the silky feeling of luxury bed sheets between his toes, and the soft springy mattress beneath him. The head pain came soon after, which elicited a groan from him, which startled a snoozing Brunnhilde and caused her to bolt from her post in the corner and straight over to his bedside.

“Ugh,” greeted Bruce, propping himself against the headboard and massaging his temples. “Alright, what did I miss? I vaguely remember… falling out of a spaceship… and then… jumping onto another spaceship?” _That must be where we are now_ , he thought, the memory of Asgard in flames suddenly clouding into his consciousness in the form of a green fog. _Great._ He could already feel his heart rate climbing—apparently him being trapped for extended periods of time inside a pressurized metal container had become a kind of running cosmic gag now.

“If that’s all you remember, then you missed… a lot, actually,” said Brunnhilde, still looking on in bemused amazement. “Well, the gist of it is this: We came, we wrecked Asgard, we left. Just like that.” She gestured to Bruce vaguely. “So. Is that how that works, then? When the other guy’s in control, you just tap out?”

“More or less, yeah.” He shifted uncomfortably under her gaze, his eyes immediately dropping to his arms. He was wearing fitted pajamas, meaning that he must have de-hulked again before passing out or falling asleep or whatever, and someone had gone to the trouble of clothing him and putting him to bed. _Thor_ , he thought. It must have been Thor.

As if she could read his mind, Brunnhilde’s lips twisted into a smirk. “You should know,” she began, “Thor told me to send you to him once you came round. But honestly—” she paused, giving Bruce a careful look of appraisal, “—you look to me like you could use a little more rest.”

Bruce raised his eyebrows. “Thoughtful,” he said, giving her a grateful smile. “Uh, but I’m fine now, though. Where is he?”

The smirk returned. “Thought you might say that,” she said, folding her arms. She jerked a thumb in the direction of the door. “Follow the hallway down, and turn left. That’ll take you to his office.”

Bruce nodded. “Thanks,” he said, then heaved himself off the bed and towards the door.

 

Bruce found him fast asleep in his office, curled up against his desk in an unceremoniously godly heap. A stack of planetary maps and star charts served as a sort of pillow for his closely-shaven head, and his cloak had been draped over his shoulders like a blanket. A pained expression was etched into the his face—and an eyepatch, which Brunnhilde had definitely _not_ warned him about. _His sister,_ he thought, resisting the urge to reach out and touch it. _Must’ve been her doing._

Thinking it best not to disturb him, Bruce turned to leave. But the creaking of the door gave him away, and he cursed at himself as Thor began to stir. His face split into a yawn, and Bruce couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight; he looked like a scraggly lion waking up from an afternoon nap.

Thor blinked sleepily, then squinted at him with his one good eye. Immediately his whole face lit up, and Bruce felt his cheeks flush in response. “Ah! Morning, Banner,” said Thor cheerily, reaching over and clapping a hand to Bruce’s shoulder. “Or, uh, whatever time it is at the moment. Though I suppose that’s kind of a moot point since we’re in deep space with… no sun or geoid nearby with which we could look to for any kind of temporal reference… ” his face twisted into a thoughtful frown. “Anywho, how are you doing?”

Bruce blinked, a little disoriented by the casual tone of the question. What was he supposed to say? One moment he was swan-diving out of the sky towards a giant zombie-wolf, and the next he was _apparently_ collapsing in the nude in front of a bunch of vikings on a spaceship. And weirdly enough, he was kind of numbing up to the absurdity of it all.

He shook his head, as if to refocus himself. “Oh, um, I’m alright,” he began. He made a tracing motion around his eye. “I uh, like your eyepatch.”

Thor grinned. “You do?”

“Totally! It’s, uh, very _you_.”

Thor laughed. “Oh, thank goodness! There aren’t many people out there who can pull off the one-eyed look, you know,” he said, giving Bruce a playful wink. In a more serious tone, he added, “How are you feeling?”

Bruce sighed. “Oh. Uh… Kinda wired, to be honest. Brunn said I should probably get some rest, but…” he shrugged, not quite sure where he was going with this. “I dunno.”

“Well, I agree,” said Thor, giving him a critical look. “You look like you could use some rest.”

Bruce laughed. “Kinda hard to in this environment.”

Thor frowned. “If it’s privacy you need, you’re welcome to have my office—”

“That’s not what I mean,” said Bruce quickly. He paused, already regretting having spoken. “Er, well, it’s more than that. Look, I don’t really wanna bother you. It’s my problem, I’ll just deal with it myself—”

“Bruce,” came Thor’s voice, firm but gentle. “Tell me.”

Bruce bit his lip. He hated having to expose himself like this, and he doubly hated having to do so in front of Thor. It felt like a weakness, and… well, it was pretty common knowledge that his green and ill-tempered bodily roommate wasn’t too fond of weakness.

Bowing his head so as to avoid making eye contact, he shuffled past Thor and over to the tiny porthole in the wall. “It’s just—it’s a lot to take in,” he said quietly, his eyes glossing over the inky stretches of space and stardust that lay just outside the glass. “All of this, I mean. Being out in deep space.” He turned back to Thor, who to his surprise appeared to be listening quite intently for how tired he looked. “See, where I’m from, well, the furthest we’ve managed to send people is to Earth’s moon,” he continued. “And even then, it’s just a select few. And those folks are generally pretty... brave.”

“And you’re not?” challenged Thor.

Bruce smiled, and immediately shook his head. “Me? Definitely not. But, uh, that’s not my point.” He drummed his fingers nervously against the rim of the porthole, trying to piece together what to say next. “It’s just… it’s a bit overwhelming, is all. And it’s a bit funny because, to be perfectly honest with you, I never really… felt like I had a place on Earth,” he confessed, running a nervous hand through his hair. “Like even before the experiment, I always felt so… _detached_ from everyone else. Isolated. Hated.” He paused, his lips quirking into a wry smile. “Though I guess there was a pretty good reason for that. But even then—even in spite of how hated and detached I felt, I at least had my feet on the ground. I knew where I was. But out here?” He paused, drawing in a shaky breath. “Out here it feels like I’m drifting. There’s nothing, no support system beneath my feet, and that scares the hell out of me.”

Bruce stuffed his hands in his pockets, and stole a quick glance at Thor. He was regarding him silently, thoughtfully—it was so intense that Bruce immediately dropped his gaze to the floor, his cheeks hot with embarrassment. Maybe… maybe he shouldn’t have said all that out loud.

“Come with me,” said Thor suddenly, jerking Bruce from his thoughts. He rose from his place at the map-strewn desk and, taking the doctor’s hand, led him out of the office.

“What—where are you— _Thor_ ,” spluttered Bruce. “I can steer myself, you know!”

Thor halted, causing Bruce to nearly crash into him. “Oh,” he said, a note of disappointment in his voice. He let go of Bruce’s hand. “Sorry. Not sure why I did that. Guess I just wanted to hold your hand,” he finished with a grin.

Bruce’s cheeks flushed. “Uh-huh,” he said, his voice cracking a little. Suddenly he missed the feeling of his hand in Thor’s, but he immediately shooed the thought away. He cleared his throat. “Where are we going, anyways?”

“You’ll see,” said Thor, giving him a vague smile as he led him down the main corridor of the ship. To this, Bruce couldn’t _help_ but smile back—he couldn’t explain it, but Thor’s enthusiasm was just infectious. He was like a puppy with that dopey grin of his, and really, it just made Bruce’s heart melt.

They had come to a large metal doorway at the end of the corridor. A keypad occupied the space next to the doorway, but Thor didn’t bother with this. Rather, he sauntered up to the doors themselves and pried them open with his bare hands. He winked at a gaping Bruce, and then gestured to the small gap he had made. “After you.”

“Uh, thanks.” Warily he shuffled his way through the gap into a dimly lit room, Thor trailing in after him. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but a couple of blinks later he gathered that he was standing in an atrium of some sort. In front of them lay a massive viewport similar to the one in the makeshift throne room. Beyond that lay the vast expanse of space, a thick shell of glass serving as their only shield from the outside. Bruce shuddered at the thought of it—too him, it suddenly felt as if they were standing inside a fragile bubble that was floating aimlessly through space, a thought which instantly nauseated him.

He turned to Thor and opened his mouth to excuse himself from the room, but clamped it shut when he saw the expression on his friend’s face. Thor was moving towards the viewport as if in a trance, his hands dangling at his sides, his one eye sparkling. Bruce had never seen anything quite like it, and just looking made butterflies form in his stomach.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” said Thor at last, his one good eye fixed on the massive viewport before them. “I’ve always loved the stars, you know… To be able to walk amongst them, to feel their beauty surrounding me… I count myself very lucky, that I am able to do just that. They’ve always been such a comfort to me.”

Bruce stole a glance at Thor just then—there was a soft, dreamy look on the god’s face, the likes of which he had never seen before. A wave of awe washed over him just then, promptly followed by an sudden and inexplicable sense of shame.  He immediately dropped his gaze and backed away from the viewport, away from him.

To his dismay, Thor noticed. “Banner,” he began, tilting his head to one side. “Are you okay?”

Another pang of guilt. Yep, Bruce could’ve kicked himself right about then. He cleared his throat and offered his best I’m-really-not-okay-but-I-don’t-want-you-to-know-that smiles. “Yeah. Sorry, I was just…” he bowed his head. “I dunno.”

A hand on his shoulder. “Tell me,” said Thor, voice gentle.

Bruce sighed. “It’s just—given everything that’s happened,” he began, unwilling to meet Thor’s gaze. “It’s hard to talk about… comfort.” He hesitated, feeling his heart rattle behind his ribs like a bird in a cage. Oh, God. He was really gonna say this in front of Thor, wasn’t he?

He drew in a shaky breath. “It’s just… we keep fighting these impossible battles, and we keep _hoping_ things will work out for us, but… we’re always let down, in the end,” he continued, still refusing to meet Thor’s eye. “We comfort ourselves with these delusions that we actually have the power to change things. But we can’t. We couldn’t save your planet, and now we’re lost out here.” He paused, gesturing to the viewport before them. “It’s the same with these stars, really. The same kind of false comfort. You look out there—you see all those stars—but can you say for certain that they’re all still out there? Or did they burn out before you and I were even born?”

Thor looked at him—there was hurt brewing in his eyes, and Bruce couldn’t help but shudder with guilt. “I mean… it’s a distance thing,” he explained. “The stars… even up here, they’re still light years away. The distance that light has to travel… if they had burnt out, we wouldn’t even know—”

“You think I don’t know that?” interrupted Thor, his voice carrying all the softness of the calm before a storm. “I have traversed entire _galaxies,_ Banner. I know the distances of the stars intimately, _painfully_ well.” He turned to face Bruce, his eye flickering with what Bruce swears is electricity. But the moment was gone before he could say for certain, and all that was left now was a hollow, weary look of a man who has suffered tremendously, who has carried the weight of the worlds on his shoulders, who had every reason to stop now but kept going anyways.

“You’re right about the stars,” he said, before Bruce could open his mouth. “And you’re right about hope. Maybe there is nothing out there for us—maybe I’m a fool for thinking that there is.” He turned towards Bruce, his one eye burning not with electricity, but with starfire. “That changes nothing, though. I’ll always follow the stars. I’ll always believe in hope. And if I have to cross the entire cosmos just to find what I’m looking for, then so be it.”

His words fell like stones into the silence, and for a second Bruce felt like he couldn’t breathe. Thor’s words had shaken him to the core, so much so that he could feel the Hulk stir somewhere inside of him, moaning as if in pain. Biting his lip, he turned away from Thor and willed the feeling away.

He could feel himself practically jump out of his skin when a hand came down on his shoulder, firm but gentle. He lifted his head to see Thor staring down at him with sadness in his eye, like the aftermath of the storm. “I’m sorry,” he began, voice soft. “I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t mean to—”

“Please,” cut in Bruce, waving a dismissive hand. “Don’t… don’t apologize.” _Whatever you do,_ don’t _apologize._ He turned his gaze back to the stars, glimmering like crystal fragments in a pitch black cave. Even the darkness, the space between each star now seemed somewhat inviting to him, like a thick velvety blanket. With a sigh, he allowed himself to soak in the view and relax his shoulders. “They really are beautiful,” he whispered at last. He hesitated, then slowly, almost without thinking, slid his hand around Thor’s waist.

He didn’t have time to second-guess if that was a good idea or not, because the moment he did this, Thor latched onto his shoulders and pulled him into a massive bear-hug. Bruce squeaked in surprise—he could feel the hairs on his arms raise, and he wondered for a second if this had aggravated the Hulk. But the being in question seemed quiet, content even, and Bruce had to admit that he felt very much the same in that particular moment. The soft but sturdy pressure of Thor’s chest pressed against his, the warmth from being held in his arms… it was a good feeling. He allowed himself to relax and sink into the embrace, wrapping his arms around the god’s back in an effort to pull him closer.

Thor began to laugh, a low, thunder-like rumble that Bruce could feel against his chest. “I have to be honest, you didn’t strike me as the hugging type,” he admitted.

“Because I’m not,” murmured Bruce, gently pulling away from Thor. He felt his cheeks flush, and his eyes immediately dropped to the floor. “I guess you’re just special.”

He didn’t even need to look up to know that in that moment, that familiar dopey grin of Thor’s had returned. Of course, he didn’t exactly have the option to look either, because he was too busy being pulled back in for another hug. He gasped, but slowly eased back into the god’s arms, enjoying the warmth and security that they provided.

He couldn’t explain it just then, but he felt a lightness in his limbs that he had never felt before. Or at least, it had been a long time since he had felt this way. He sighed, burrowing his head into Thor’s chest. Here, in this room surrounded by stars, he felt like he was weightless. It was as if he _was_ actually floating in space, only it wasn’t that aimless sense of drifting that had caused him such anxiety before. This time, he had Thor—Thor, who was his anchor, his tether—someone with whom he could be genuine and even vulnerable with, yet still feel safe in doing so. He sighed happily and nestled even further into the crook of Thor’s shoulder.

“Maybe I don’t need a place on Earth after all,” he murmured. “Maybe the only place I need to be is right here in your arms.”

“Maybe so,” said Thor back, his voice low and warm, his breath soft against his ear. “But I say that your place is wherever you want it to be—Earth or otherwise.”

He felt Thor stir against him, and sighed contentedly as one hand massaged his back in slow, smooth strokes, while the other made its way to the curls on his head.

“Here,” he said quietly, feeling a tear roll down his cheek. “I want to be here.”

He gave a delighted shudder as Thor pressed a series of soft kisses to his neck.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Please consider leaving a comment if possible!! Or feel free to hit me up on tumblr @faramir-in-space. Thanks <333


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